The Automated Business Assessment and Benchmarking tool for Small and Medium Businesses

Business Planning – Where to Start?

Business Planning – Where to Start?

Some business owners and managers, who have never written a business plan before, can suddenly wake up to the need to put some structure on their journeyinto the future, instead of leaving it all to chance or deciding to – let’s see what happens first. This awakening to the need for business planning is key to building a predictable and sustainable future for your business.

However, all too often the business planning commences before the business owner grounds himself in the here and now. This can render the business plan useless or completely ineffective. This means that you need to take a step back from the future and ground yourself in the past before you start the business planning process.

So once you take the important decision that a business plan is necessary for delivering a coherent and realizable future for you business, what do you do next? In my view, the best place to start is in examining where your business is today and the steps you have taken in the past to get the business to the here and now.

Past decisions and actions leave their imprint on the business and it is relatively straightforward to analyze the key decisions taken in the past, and to uncover what they delivered. It is imperative that you become clear on the management decisions that generated the most wins and the most losses up until the present time.

If you are new to the business planning process, and to carrying out a reliable and accurate business analysis, you don’t have to do this in a vacuum wherein you struggle to figure out where to start; what is involved; and how to know when you have completed the process.

Business Planning Templates

There are business planning templates available on the web to guide you through the necessary steps. Some are free and some you have to pay for. You can start with a simple one-page business plan using the Business Model Canvas to create a viable headline plan (the what), and then put meat on the bones by adding the how, the whom, the when, as well as the likely revenues and costs.

Financial Analysis Tools

There are also financial analysis models available on the web that will allow you to grasp the meaning of the underlying numbers in your profit and loss account and balance sheet, and these are particularly useful if you don’t really like working with numbers. And if all else fails, you can always hire a business analyst or consultant to guide you step-by-step through the business and financial analysis process. Your base line financial performance is inextricably linked to your future financial performance and so there is little point in forecasting extraordinary growth and profitability if historically your business has just broken even.

Business Analysis Tools

But is there an easier way for business owners to grasp all the knowledge they need to take their business forward to the next level? What if I told you that you could avoid spending days and weeks soul-searching your business history and gain a thorough understanding of the status quo in your business and what has got it to this point in time, in just 90 minutes of active engagement on your computer?

What if I told you that you do not need to engage directly with anyone or spend hours or days explaining your business to a stranger? What if I told you that you can get a complete financial analysis carried out on your business by simply copying the numbers from your profit and loss statement and balance sheet into a simple model that tracks key performance indicators?

The good news is that there is an online product that does all of this analysis for you, and it is available today on http://howsmybusinessdoing.com. It’s called HowsMyBusinessDoing. Yes, it gets under the skin of your business and tells you what the business does well and what it does poorly. Yes, it allows you to carry out a financial analysis that delivers an easy-to-understand summary of all key financial trends. And, yes, it actually mirrors how a bank or investor might look at the business.

So the key question is – what would I need to spend to quickly get all of this information? You are probably thinking thousands of dollars. Wrong. You can get a 50+ page report on your business, which includes benchmarking it against observed best business practice, and a financial analysis report, for just $497. You can have a second run through the system to measure your improvements in 3 or 6 months time for just $50. If your business changes, so will the report you get.

Business Planning Tools

Understanding where your business is now, and how it is performing, is only the starting point in the business planning process. You need to take this knowledge and plug it into a structured business plan that acts as a roadmap for the future of your business. We offer a business planning tool and business planning template for purchase on our sister website – www.niallstrickland.com. If you purchase HowsMyBusinessDoing today, we will throw in our comprehensive business planning product as acomplimentary bonus.

Summary

This combination of business assessment and business planning in a single comprehensive and integrated package will move you from questioning where your business stands today, to charting a bright future that your entire team can embrace and follow. Remember, what gets written down has a far better chance of getting done than some vague plan in your head. The sharing of the plan with your team, and getting the input from team members, will lock down what you are trying to achieve as well as creating buy-in from team members.

If you have any business planning questions, feel free to comment below or drop us an email. We will be happy to share our knowledge with you.

So what are our clients saying?

I have been an Executive for 20 years and a business consultant providing services to medium and small businesses for 10 years. I have been looking for a tool that will help me quickly analyze my client's current situation and provide a solid, measurable road map for improvement. This product is the answer!! It is accurate and relevant across a broad range of industries and business types. The ROI for my clients? The money spent was returned in under a week. HowsMyBusinessDoing delivered a solid analysis and solid recommendations toward improvement.

Larendee Roos, CEO Roos Consulting, Brooklyn NY

HowsMyBusinessDoing.com provided me with a 50 page report on my business within 30 seconds of completing the survey. It is astonishing how accurate the report is considering that I never engaged with a human management consultant

Gerard Coffey, CEO Floor Design Ltd., Ireland

When I first looked at trying this intelligent business analysis tool I thought that it could not be much use because it is so inexpensive. Boy was I wrong! It just oozes value and costs less than a night out to dinner with my family or a business magazine subscription

Vincent Kennedy, CEO Equashe, Ireland

HowsMyBusinessDoing.com provided me with a 50 page report on my business within 30 seconds of completing the survey. It is astonishing how accurate the report is considering that I never engaged with a human management consultant

Gerard Coffey, CEO Floor Design Ltd., Ireland

This tool really is at the leading edge of business analysis. I haven’t seen anything like this before. The accuracy of the report is uncanny and the cost is miniscule

Ray Kane, CEO Special Steels Ltd, Ireland

I recently undertook the "HowsMyBusinessDoing.com" survey with one of my clients. It was easy to understand and complete in less that two hours. The "36 Month Question" in particular was a very powerful exercise. The detailed 70 page report we received accurately reflected my understanding of the company and supplied me with an independent identification and confirmation of areas we need to work on that will further improve the performance of the company. I see myself using "HowsMyBusinessDoing?" again with other clients going forward and it represents great value for money in my opinion.

Financial analysis of businesses is part of my stock and trade but this is only one part of gaining an understanding of what makes a business successful or not. How the business is managed is the other key component of success. Up until now, this type of business intelligence could only be gathered by interviewing senior executives in a business. With the introduction of HowsMyBusinessDoing on the market, this type of business intelligence can be gathered quickly and simply by any business owner and without the need to hire an external expert.

Greg Colclough, Chartered Certified Accountant

I have been a business lending banker for more than 30 years and have recently used 'HowsMyBusinessDoing' to analyse the businesses of some of my customers. I have to say that the results generated by 'HowsMyBusinessDoing' have consistently matched my own assessment of the businesses concerned. It has the capacity to quickly help business owners improve aspects of their business they may have thought were working well and identify problems that they may not have been aware of.

Pat Errity, Business Lending Banker

HowsMyBusinessDoing is a very good tool which enabled me to glean information about my competitors and other successful businesses, and to find out what best practices they used, so that I could use these practices and implement them into my business. I found HowsMyBusinessDoing a very cost effective way to improve my business and I have been very satisfied with the results.

Paul Kinsella, Owner Kinsella Antiques, Cairns, Queensland, Australia

HowsMyBusinessDoing helped me to get an understanding of the true value of my business, which backed up my decision to sell it and move my life in a new direction. In my opinion, HowsMyBusinessDoing is a tool that can be used in any business, regardless of industry or business size.

Cathal Markey, former CEO SSIL, Ireland

HowsMyBusinessDoing, is a really thorough business assessment tool than can quickly get underneath the skin of your business and point you in the right direction. Not only does it identify the areas where you are weak, it also shows you the strengths you can build on to make your business more profitable.

We made a major shift in what we were doing after using HowsMyBusinessDoing. We made changes in the way we offered our programs and to whom we were going to offer those programs. We shut down a whole sector of one of our program offers and we did that not because we were trying to reduce the size of our business but we did need to make some consolidations to make sure we’ve got the ability to meet the needs of our better end and most reliable clients, and the 28 point Health Check system gave us the ability to find those people and find a way to meet the needs that we saw.

Dr. Frank Hansen, Vice President, Stauron University, Maine

I have used HowsMyBusinessDoing for service organizations, non-profit organizations. I have used it for retail organizations. I also used it in my own business in helping me to determine how my business was structured and how my consulting practice could be improved.

Larendee Roos, CEO Roos Consulting, Brooklyn, NY

Buy Now and Pay in US$US $497

This button is for businesses that are located outside of Europe. No VAT taxes will be charged.

Buy Now and Pay in EuroEuro €375

This button is for businesses located in Europe. VAT tax will be added to the purchase price.